Apostates, Hybrids, or True Jews

Description

This book explores the relationship between Christian faith and Jewish identity from the perspective of three Jewish believers in Jesus living in eastern and central Europe before World War I: Rudolf Hermann (Chaim) Gurland, Christian Theophilus Lucky (Chaim Jedidjah Pollak), and Isaac (Ignatz) Lichtenstein. They were all rabbis or had rabbinic education, and were, in different ways, combining their faith in Jesus as Messiah with their Jewish identity. The book offers a biographical study of the three men and an analysis of their understanding of identity. This analysis considers five categories of identification: the relation of Gurland, Lucky, and Lichtenstein to Jewish tradition, to the Jewish people, to Christian tradition, to the Christian community, and to the network of Jewish believers in Jesus. Lillevik argues that Gurland, Lucky, and Lichtenstein transcended essentialist as well as constructionist ideas of Jewish and Christian identity in very different ways.